Electrical Design Software | Elecdes Design Suite by Scada Systems Ltd

How to Generate a Bill of Materials

Fundamentals

The Ebase material report function extracts all electrical components, (instruments, terminals and devices), from all of the drawings in the current project (Elecdes and Paneldes) and generates a bill of materials, a quantity summary and a partial quantity summary, in database format. The three files are named <ProjectName>BOM.dbf, <ProjectName>BSUM.dbf and <ProjectName>BOMSA.dbf respectively.

The bill of materials, <ProjectName>BOM.dbf, is a sorted list of the electrical components in the current project. It has the following features:

  • Components with duplicated tagnames and devices composed of multiple subcomponents have a single entry in the bill of materials listing.

  • Modular subcomponents will cause multiple entries for the same tagname in the Bill of Materials.

  • Duplicated tagnames will produce a DUPLICATED warning in the WARNINGS field of the report.

    Duplicated symbol warnings can be suppressed at per symbol basis if required.

  • Blank tagnames will produce a BLANK NAME warning in the WARNINGS field of the report.

  • For components with catalog specifications, Ebase will reference the catalog to obtain any information about the item that was not stored on the drawing, e.g. component price.

    The listed price is the unit price of each electrical component.

  • If the attributes found on the drawings do not match the catalog data and the values are not blank a CATALOG MISMATCH warning will be added to the WARNINGS field of the report.

  • If the catalog specification in the drawings does not match any specification in the catalog's then a CAT SPEC NOT FOUND warning will be added to the WARNINGS field of the report.

  • If the catalog specification in the schematics differs from that in either the Paneldes drawings of the wiring diagrams then a CAT MISMATCH IN PANEL MODEL or CAT MISMATCH IN WIRING DIAGRAM warning respectively will be added to the WARNINGS field of the report.

  • If the part in the schematic is not represented in either the Paneldes drawings or wiring diagrams then a NOT PRESENT IN PANEL MODEL or NOT PRESENT IN WIRING DIAGRAM warning respectively will be added to the WARNINGS field of the report.

  • If the device does not contain a catalog specification then a NOT FROM CATALOG warning will be added to the WARNINGS field of the report.

  • If the device does not contain a VISDESC value then a BLANK VISDESC warning will be added to the WARNINGS field of the report.

  • VISDESC, CATDESC and BOMDESC column data are all sourced from the subcomponent 0 catalog record or the subcomponent 0 symbol.

  • If the item is a multi-way terminal and the name of the terminal does not match one of the terminal names specified in the catalog for that part then a CATALOG WAY MISMATCH warning will be added to the WARNINGS field of the report.

  • All entries have a cross-reference to the component's sheet and position in the drawing file set.


Selected warnings from those discussed above can be disabled from Setup.


The quantity summary, <ProjectName>BSUM.dbf, lists the total number of insertions, for each type of electrical component in your current project and the total price for that number of insertions.

  • The component type is regarded as identical if catalog number and manufacturer's code are identical.

  • The total price is calculated from the unit price, listed with each entry in the bill of materials, and the quantity, listed in the quantity summary.



The partial quantity summary, <ProjectName>BOMSA.dbf, is essentially the same as the bill of materials, with the addition of a quantity summary for the terminals in a terminal strip and modular components for a device.


Reports from multiple projects can reside in the same directory, as each report is uniquely linked to its project number by the first part of the filename. Elecdes does not use these reports after they are generated. You may alter the files to suit your own purposes without affecting the operation of Elecdes.

Tagnames

Elecdes assumes that any symbols with the same name and location represent the same physical object.

For the purposes of reporting, the name of a device is TAGNAME and the location is PNLNO.

Similarly .

  • WIRENAME is the name of a wire

  • CABLENAME and CORENAME combined form the name of a cable core (conductor) 

  • TBLOCK and T1 combined form the name of a terminal. The location is PNLNO.

MTD terminals

MTD terminals have the block name TERMPxx.DWG (where xx can be any number). These are recognised by EDS as being the terminals of an MTD device. They are not reported in the materials lists as "parts to purchase" but you can cross-reference the MTD terminals

Link bars or bridge bars for terminal strips

You can specify that a wire represents a link bar or bridge bar for a terminal strip by setting the RSTATUS attribute or catalog column of the wire to the text "BARCOND". Wires marked as link bars will appear in the materials reports. RSTATUS is a new attribute and would need to be added to wire marker symbols from EDS versions prior to 7.3.

Raceway Length Summary

The quantity summary will list the total linear quantity of raceway or ducting used in your Paneldes drawings. This quantity will be summed by adding the lengths of each raceway linear segment for any part number.

"Single Line Zone" areas and their effects

Reports may show warnings where duplication problems occur as a result of components that have been shown on a single line diagram as well as shown on the equivalent schematic in your project. These warnings may be avoided if Ebase can recognise the single line circuit. To avoid these warnings you must place the single line diagram inside a single line zone symbol's designated area.

Components placed in a single line zone will be shown in the bill of materials report.

Single line zones can be inserted and sized with Elecdes.

EXTRAPARTS Column - Add extra parts to the BOM

An item's catalog record for its primary subcomponent (i.e. Subcomponent 0 usually) can contain a list of parts or a reference to a hook-up drawing in the column named EXTRAPARTS. This may be used to automatically insert several extra parts into the BOM for any device you have used in your project. This works for parts in Paneldes or Elecdes drawings in your project.

This function is ideal for inserting a relay base or a lamp bezel or mounting accessories for any part.

See How to add non-electrical parts to the bill of materials for more information.

Procedure

  1. Save the current drawing, if it is currently open in a CAD session. This ensures that the material report function is not working with an old drawing file while the drawing session has new data.

  2. Run EBASE.

  3. Ensure your current EBASE project contains the drawing files relevant to a bill of materials.

  4. Check the box for "Material Reports".

  5. Press "Compile Reports".

  6. As each drawing file in the project is processed a message will appear showing the drawing name and the size of the drawing file. Ebase caches unmodified drawings for speed. If drawings do not appear to be scanned on successive report generations, it is because they are cached.

  7. During cache scans there is a possibility that the database engine will be busy. You will be displayed a message indicating this and given options to wait or cancel.


The three database format reports, <ProjectName>BOM.dbf, <ProjectName>BSUM.dbf and <ProjectName>BOMSA.dbf, will be available in the current directory.

The PLC Index report is also produced by the material reports option.

Select Database Editor to view database reports.